


Chalk Dust

by counterheist



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-12
Updated: 2010-11-12
Packaged: 2017-11-29 11:29:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/686458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counterheist/pseuds/counterheist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lovino Vargas (<i>grandson, philosophy graduate, teacher, brother, man</i>): 1. Fate: a lifetime. It’s a start.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chalk Dust

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for [xenpher](http://xenpher.livejournal.com/) for this year's Spamano Exchange. The prompt was "AU school themed."

Autumn is crisp and the dry wind rattles by as Lovino Vargas steps up to the door of a red brick building he’s never been in before. He knows there are things everyone says about the start of classes. Things like find the room _before_ the first day. Find the room. Don’t be late. Your fly’s unzipped.

But Lovino isn’t an idiot, he didn’t get through 23 years of ( _an admittedly boring_ ) life just to screw up his first day as a Teaching Assistant by being lost, late, and slovenly. He doesn’t need people to tell him things he already knows. Once inside the building, he winds his way past the slow trickle of students emptying out of a stairwell and glances at his wristwatch: 11:28. Well, shit. Fuck. Lovino’s not an idiot, and his day _isn’t_ screwed, but Philosophy 101F is supposed to start at 11:30 and that can’t happen if he’s not there to pass out the syllabus. And teach the course.

Fuck.

Lovino has no idea what he’s doing in graduate school other than not having to work for a few more years. Grandpa pays the bills while his favorite boys are in school, that’s the deal, and if Lovino knows anything, he knows which way is up and that he doesn’t know what to do with the rest of his life.

Five minutes later, out of breath and disgruntled, Lovino pauses outside South 323 to wipe his palms against the sides of his slacks and carefully check that every zip is zipped and button buttoned. He would have preferred a mirror, but he’s late as it is: how was he supposed to know room 323 was on the third floor of the building? So Lovino straightens his tie to his faded tin reflection on the side of the water fountain next to his classroom, until he feels someone watching him.

Being watched was such a rare occurrence, growing up, that Lovino grew to know, to cherish, every second someone else’s eyes spent on him.

But it’s 11:34.

Lovino doesn’t have time to cherish now, not properly. Instead he stands and turns, neck still tingling from the attention, and stares back at the stranger in front of him. The world doesn’t stop, Lovino’s heart keeps on beating, one-two time, but his mind makes a note that maybe there’s something _to_ being late every once in a while. The stranger’s clothes are well-chosen and well-kept, cut as clean as the Equinox; but he’s carrying too many books and somehow he’s gotten chalk dust in his hair. Lovino’s own coat and single folder sit under his arm, and even though he knows he’s going to walk right in to 323 and lecture about paying attention to the little things, he doesn’t really care that the stranger’s books are slipping or that his tie falls past his belt buckle.

The stranger holds out his hand and Lovino almost takes it before the fingers curl away into a point at the fountain and the other hand holds up a water bottle Lovino hadn’t noticed before.

“May I?”

It’s 11:35 when Lovino strides through the open door of South 323 and sets his coat over the edge of the front desk next to the moveable podium. His cheeks are still red from embarrassment, but that can easily be brushed away as a result of hurrying through the morning chill. The students, the little bright-eyed bastards, scuttle back to their seats and at Lovino’s expression don’t say a word about his tardiness.

He doesn’t start class like he was trained to, over the summer, but he’s already blown the on-time thing, Lovino thinks, so why bother with any of the other formalities? But patterns are hard for Lovino to beat and he finds himself reaching for an eraser to wipe the blackboards clean. Not only is he stuck teaching an intro course to kids who don’t know anything, but he’s stuck teaching in a room where the most advanced pieces of technology are the light switches. _Great_.

Lovino coughs a little as he sweeps the eraser across the board in long arcs. Stalling for time, he reads what the last teacher wrote,

Antonio Fernandez Carriedo  
afc13@uni.edu  
Monday: 3:00-4:30  
Thursday: 1:00-3:00  
Ask questions! 

…and is reminded that he’s supposed to be giving out the same information. Lovino thanks Antonio Fernandez Carriedo, whoever he is, in his mind as he details one of the twerps in the front row to pass out the papers he’d brought with him that morning.

Quickly, Lovino scribbles his own name and office hours on the board.

Lovino Vargas  
lvargas@uni.edu  
T: 12 – 2, F: 9:30-11:30 

Before turning around he speaks, loud enough for the entire room to hear. “You can ask me whatever questions you want as long as they aren’t stupid ones.”

That gets Lovino some laughs, the previous note had been hard to miss, and through the giggles and rustle of paper Lovino finds his footing. He’s got the power in this situation; it doesn’t matter what the students say, _Lovino_ ’s word will always be the final one in the classroom. He turns around, chalk still in hand. “This is my contact information. All of it is on the syllabus. Don’t complain to me if you lose it, I don’t have extras.”

There is a girl in pigtails already taking notes. Lovino loves it. “I don’t check my email after 10:00pm or on weekends,” is a blatant lie, but Lovino’s students don’t need to know that, “so if you have questions go to office hours. I have to be there anyway.” He is torn between hoping none of them do, so that he doesn’t have to talk to them more than is necessary, and hoping all the stupid ones do, so he can point out their stupidity to them and fix it and thereby show his Grand— his superiors that he’s amazing at this whole teaching thing.

A boy in the second row already looks scared. Lovino turns back to the board so his students can’t see him smile. He needs to be cool and aloof right now. “I don’t give partial credit, I don’t grade on a curve. Because this is a weed-out course, no one’s going to care if you whine about my policies,” is thankfully not a lie, “so suck it up and learn the material.”

No one speaks, and, grinning, Lovino begins to write a quote on the board:

Reason itself is fallible, and this fallibility must find a place in our logic.

He can practically _feel_ the trembling from behind him and sets the white chalk down with a small _plink_ before crossing his arms and facing his audience. Students. “Usually the first day of this course starts with an introduction to Plato.” Several students nod, unsure, and Lovino can see printouts of _Crito_ and _The Apology of Socrates_ from the previous year’s syllabus scattered around the room. He can see several tell-tale Sparknotes cheat books too, though, and breathes a short sigh of relief: for a second he’d feared he’d been saddled with a class full of fucking overachievers.

Lovino hates overachievers: they remind him of his brother.

“But this year there are 300 of you, in total, taking this course.” Somebody drops a pen, and the whole class starts. “There are 100 spaces in Philosophy 102 next semester.” Someone mutters ‘shit’ in the back corner, and if Lovino were an econ student he would bet all his spare change that that kid’s going to get an A. “The professor who’s managing 101 told us to make sure you had to work to get a spot.”

Most of the class has realized it by now, but Lovino’s satisfaction doesn’t fade as he picks up his chalk again and writes something underneath the quote on the blackboard.

Discuss.

He circles it for good measure and, silently, crosses his arms again. And waits ( _uncharacteristically, sure, but first impressions are important and he’s more than a little high off the power and a kid in the third row looks like he’s about to faint and Lovino had forgotten how much he loves screwing around with freshmen_ ).

Less than an hour later Lovino already has two students in mind who he wants to fail, the pigtailed girl has already gotten on his nerves by offhandedly referencing Sartre as though she owns the room and in retaliation Lovino already has a ten question pop quiz freshly printed on the board in chalk. He can’t even hear the sound of pencils scribbling furiously anymore, probably because there isn’t much time left and all of the kids are caught in despair.

Potentially because he wrote questions eight through ten in Latin.

The thick silence is pulverized to dust when the bell rings, marking the end of the class period. The students collectively breathe a sigh of relief before Lovino raises his eyebrows and demands they turn in their tests. The twerp from the front row goes pale at the word ‘test’ and Lovino holds out for as long as he can ( _holds his laughter in, just barely_ ) before saying that the quiz will be graded based on participation only. The students sigh again before pushing their attempts at answers and half-assed BS to the front.

While they leave, Lovino shoves the papers into his folder. ‘Oh _God_ ,’ he thinks, ‘this is amazing.’ Half the class marches out of the room determined; the other slinks away visibly disturbed and maybe, if he’s lucky, Lovino will come to lecture tomorrow and find the weaker half have all dropped out. It’d be nice not to have to grade so many papers. No matter what policies the department changes, Philosophy students will always have to write papers.

When it’s 12:35 and no one else enters the room, Lovino realizes there is no class in room 323 after his and his day is made even better. He’s guaranteed a place, for at least an hour, where no one will bother him. No one will barge in through the door with a stack of research papers, no one will ask him stupid questions, no one will turn around and casually let slip that, ve ve ve, they can’t have lunch together today either.

He sits down at the front desk, pulls out the class roster and casually flips through the stack of quizzes. One student didn’t write anything at all and Lovino makes sure to mark a little red minus sign next to her name on the class list before wadding up her paper and tossing it in the general direction of the recycling bin. Another student wrote ‘balls’ as the answer to every question and Lovino hopes _this_ kid stays on long enough to get an essay or two evaluated. Lovino hasn’t made anyone cry since he was six and accidentally managed to push Feli over in the sandbox.

Lovino hasn’t made anyone cry for a long time. But not for lack of trying.

‘Grading’ the rest of the quizzes doesn’t take very long; it takes an even shorter amount of time for Lovino to get sick of the room. He leaves in a hurry, not bothering to pick up the drifts of papers crowded around the bin, to wipe off the boards or to even turn off the lights. He does bother to check his appearance in the side of the water fountain again and balks when he realizes that he has chalk dust smeared all up and down his shirtsleeves.

As he slinks out of the building, ready to curse the world, he hears a muffled laugh dance itself out of one of the administrative offices. It sounds so happy, so carefree, that Lovino wants to hit it in its nonexistent face. It’s directed at him. He knows it. He stomps away as quickly as he can.

That night, Feliciano makes Lovino’s favorite dish for dinner. ‘…Maybe,’ Lovino thinks, ‘the world isn’t a damned hellhole after all.’

The next day, Lovino returns to class in much better spirits. He gets there two whole minutes early, appearance perfect, and doesn’t embarrass himself _once_ on the way. When the bell rings he notices that at least ten chairs are empty. Lovino wonders, in the back of his mind, if the fates have mistaken him for his brother. But if they have then they have; it’s not his fault, no take backs, he deserves the good fortune more anyway.

There’s something written on the chalkboard again, and Lovino wonders if the dregs of the previous class are going to become a daily occurrence.

Remember: everyone starts with a zero in the course, so it can only get better from here!

Maybe it’s Fate, or the pasta from the night before, or maybe Lovino is feeling more playful than bitter because he got up on the right side of the bed, but when he wipes the board clean he keeps the optimistic sentence. He can practically feel it laughing, although it doesn’t feel like it’s laughing at him. He doesn’t mind it.

Unless you fail completely

That doesn’t mean he lets his students bask in the optimism too, and when he adds his edit underneath the line and grins at the kid in the third row who wrote _isn’t this that gay dead language?_ on question nine the day before, the little bastard gulps.

Lovino counts it as a victory and starts on Plato.

That night, Feliciano stumbles in around one smelling like cheap cologne and hard alcohol. The only thing he’ll say to Lovino is that, ve ve ve, there’s someone he wants Lovino to meet. After that he passes out. Lovino leaves him in the bathroom, snoring in the tub.

The next morning Lovino runs out of their apartment at top speed, late to class _again_ , only to slam the door open on someone’s review of lighting techniques. He didn’t sleep through his alarm: it just hadn’t sounded yet, and he screams a little on the inside for all the panic he just put himself through. Meanwhile, the Photography class he’s walked in on stalls. Lovino stalls too. There’s a dark grainy picture of a sunset taped to the board. Underneath, a familiar hand has captioned it in green chalk.

You can do better!

Silently, Lovino parrots the sentiment to Fate. Because the man standing in front of the class is the same man Lovino had been appreciating on Monday morning at 11:34. His tie has been traded in for a form-fitting sweater. His water bottle is sitting happily on the front desk in the same place Lovino’s coat has lived for the past two days. He looks blankly at Lovino for a moment or two before his smile brightens in a way the badly exposed photo only wishes it could. He waves. “Hi!”

Lovino doesn’t wave back. “H—h— I teach the next section.” Instead, he realizes the class staring at him isn’t his own, he turns tail, and he runs. He spends the next hour hiding in the far stall of the men’s room, devising the most difficult discussion questions he can. It’s cathartic.

He’s late to class again ( _for real this time_ ). The kid from the third row is sitting all the way in the back. The pigtailed girl is sitting in the front row. The board is clean, except for a beat-up copy of _Basic Photography_ that’s leaning in the corner, surrounded by a protective chalk bubble and the words

Left-behind book, please don’t erase this message!

Lovino’s ears flush up at the handwriting, now that he knows who it belongs to, but he pushes everything down and away and goes through the motions of running his class instead of remembering why the world hates him. It’s not until his break hour that he walks over to the corner of the board and picks up the textbook. He tells himself it’s inherited curiosity that makes him flip through the pages, not some pathetic desire to figure out Antonio Ask Questions! by examining the things he’s touched.

And while that’s both a little wrong and a little right, something else is far more interesting for Lovino to contemplate than his own interpersonal angst. Antonio Ask Questions! left him a note, hidden behind the textbook.

I wouldn’t be doing my job very well if that happened.

It takes Lovino a few seconds to remember what the hell that’s supposed to mean, and a few minutes to figure out what the hell he should write in response or if he should say anything at all. He’s not desperate. He wonders if desperation would be freedom. He wonders if having the balls to answer would really be freedom at all. By the time he stops wondering half an hour has already passed, his face hurts from all the scrunching he’s let his forehead do and he’s no further than where he was when he started.

Footsteps echo down the hallway and suddenly Lovino wants to be gone. He scribbles the first thing he can think of underneath Antonio’s answer, replaces the book and bolts. He doesn’t even bother to pull his coat fully on.

Not my problem

Except it _is_ his problem, in an odd way.

That night, Feliciano cleans the apartment to apologize for that morning. He also tells Lovino to keep his Friday night free, because Feliciano’s set him up on a blind date with the friend of a friend. Lovino doesn’t trust Feliciano’s friends. He declines and accidentally tips over a bookcase when he tries to walk away. Lovino’s too damn clumsy sometimes and he hates it because he always manages to break expensive things like vases and watches and relationships.

Aristotle, Locke and Descartes spill across the floor. Feli jumps in surprise but doesn’t shout and sets to cleaning up the mess before the mess is even finished spreading across their living room floor. Lovino doesn’t help, just stands in the middle of it all, until a rough little paperback with _I neoplatonici_ emblazoned across the front in red slides to a stop at his feet. He picks it up slowly, considers it, and then forcefully shoves it back onto the bookcase Feliciano has only just righted.

He shakes his fist at the ceiling when Feliciano and he finally sprawl down on the book-free clean floor. The first person Feliciano set Lovino up with had been Lovino’s childhood best friend. The last had smelled excessively of potatoes ( _how the fuck had he even managed that?_ ). Lovino refuses to go on any more dates picked by his brother until Feliciano can prove in advance things won’t turn out to be a disaster. And Lovino will hold to that promise, even if one of Feli’s sizable poetry anthologies falls onto his face unprompted, open to a page of flowery love sonnets, and starts singing at him to go on the damn date.

The bookshelf wobbles.

Lovino scoots a little further away from it, just to be safe.

The next day, five of the missing ten students show up to class and Lovino is slightly disappointed. But when one of the dummies from the fourth row, one of the kids who actually showed up at Lovino’s cramped office on Tuesday afternoon, shows that he might have retained a fragment of the knowledge Lovino tried to beat into his pathetic brain at office hours, a switch in Lovino’s brain flips. Having someone trust him for information, having someone try their hardest to remember his words is another feeling Lovino isn’t used to.

He lets the students leave a minute early, because all of a sudden he doesn’t know what to say. When everyone else is gone he runs for the photography book, which looks untouched, and checks behind it.

That’s not a very nice thing to say.

The previous messages are all erased and Lovino doesn’t know how to respond to this either. He wants write ‘fuck you’ but he doesn’t. He wants to write nothing but he wants that least of all. So he scrounges around in his brain, past all the dust and noise, and pulls out something reliable: a quote. When Lovino’s own words won’t come, usually other people’s words fall into the blanks. Now everything’s a blank. Lovino jots down the first thing he thinks of and doesn’t regret any of it until that evening when he is wracked by anxiety.

I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.

Later that night, Feliciano suggests Lovino go dancing with Feliciano and his friends the next night. And Feliciano’s friends of friends. Lovino breaks a plate while cleaning up after dinner. But he says ‘yes’ when he sees Feliciano washing up in the bathroom before bed. Feli, ve ve ve, is ecstatic. Lovino only thinks about the chance he already screwed up earlier in the day and tries not to think about what the next day will bring.

He dreams about pulverizing potatoes into a squelchy mess between his feet. He hasn’t studied much psychology, but it’s not too difficult to interpret the dream. Feliciano is gone by the time Lovino sets about to making himself a cappuccino in the morning: Lovino can’t back out if there’s no one to give excuses to.

No one comes to office hours and by the end of it Lovino is dying of boredom. He wonders if it’s a punishment for trying to skip out on Feliciano’s plans. He wonders if it’s a punishment for coming on too strong the day before. He wonders if it’s a punishment for outright hating over half of his students. He hopes it isn’t the last; he’d like to continue hating his stupid students in peace, like he will until they prove themselves to him. In order to help them do that, he gives them another short quiz in class and blatantly ignores the pigtailed girl when she asks why he’s always late.

It’s only been a week. **Always** is a strong term to use for one week ( _but since she’s stopped quoting Sartre at him, he lets her off easy_ ).

Five minutes before the end of class, Lovino hands out the cruelest task he managed to think of in his empty office hours: an essay. He makes one of the front row-ers _(“I don’t care what your name is, just pass these out”_ ) hand out ten vague prompts. None are in Latin or Italian or in badly-translated, piecemeal Etruscan, because even if Lovino hates his stupid students, it’s not like he **hates** them. There are only a few special people Lovino has the fire to **hate**.

But still, Lovino likes lording over the people he actually has the authority to lord over. He tells his students they have five weeks to turn in their papers. Fifteen pages. He’s already picked the due date to be the day of the campus’s fall festival. One or two of them might have the presence of mind to get the work done in advance. But if Lovino remembers his undergraduate years properly, ninety percent of them will still be furiously outlining, tears in their eyes, at five in the morning on the day of the festival.

Nothing is as unpredictable as life. Two things come close: red devils ( _if Lovino’s grandfather is to be believed_ ) and long deadlines. The latter has the habit of shape-shifting into no time at all, which Lovino knows all too well. He remembers it whenever he sees the Vargas Library on campus. Feliciano calls it the ‘Lovi and I forgot about turning those admissions papers in but then Grandpa said he’d make it better, ve, and he did!’ Library.

Time isn’t constant, and while for his students class takes forever to end, Lovino feels like he’s blinked and suddenly it’s 12:46. And he’s alone in a classroom.

He doesn’t want to know, but he really _really_ does, so he quickly walks to the far corner of the blackboard and pulls _Basic Photography_ aside. And comes nose-to-chalk with his own handwriting. Someone else’s words, but his own handwriting. Lovino is disappointed, but maybe it’s for the best. Maybe this time Feli’s friend of a friend is someone really good. Perfect, even. Maybe this time Feli’s friend of a friend will like tomatoes and long nights and slow mornings.

Lovino stands, and thinks.

And for the second it takes him to walk through the door, Antonio watches. He wonders what Lovino Discuss is thinking. He wishes he could take a picture of it, but he left his camera in his office with his books and the last time he tried to use the camera on his phone he accidentally deleted all of his contacts. But still life has never been Antonio’s passion anyway. “So I thought about it for a really long time, because I know this room has Philosophy 101 in it when I leave, and… are you okay?”

Lovino Discuss is lying on the ground, he must have tripped over something Antonio can’t see, and he’s taken the podium with him. He’s lucky it fell next to him and not on him, because Antonio’s no doctor. Although he has a phone. So he could have called for help if he’d needed to. And since he gave up trying to use the features on his phone in July, the campus medical center hotline should still be set to speed dial lucky number seven where Gilbert’s mother programmed it earlier in the year.

Gilbert’s mom is awesome like that.

“… _fuck_.”

And now he’s clutching his head and oh did he hit that on the side of the front desk? Antonio thinks he did, which looks like it would be really painful, because the desk’s edges are really sharp. He kneels down and pushes Lovino’s bangs away from his forehead. “Here, let me see…” Lovino’s forehead is warm against his palm, and it takes Antonio a happy few seconds to remember that he’s no doctor and he has no idea how to check for head injuries before he pulls away. “You don’t have any cuts and I don’t think anything’s going to bruise. I know a lot about what bad bruises look like. Five years ago, when I was twenty, my friend wanted me to shoot him jumping off buildings and things, but more often I ended up taking pictures of his injuries.” It had taken Francis a while to get good at parkour, no matter how much he’d said he was a natural man of daring and danger. Antonio still has a framed collage of bruises and sprains to prove it. He keeps it in his office as a conversation piece.

“… _fuck_.”

That doesn’t sound like pain. But Antonio checks anyway. “Are you in pain?”

Lovino mutters something that sounds like “only emotional” before coughing and saying “no.”

On most days Antonio would have dismissed the first part. But this isn’t most days. And this isn’t most people. He looks down at the dark green smear on his left hand and resumes what he’d been saying when he’d entered the room. “…so I was thinking about it all night. But now my answer might be a little different, if you’re in emotional pain.” Lovino curses. To Antonio’s ears it sounds more like an invitation for a hug, but since he doesn’t know Lovino very well ( _yet_ ), he contents himself with holding out his left hand to help his explanation. “I copied what you wrote down to make sure I would remember it properly. Because I didn’t bring my camera with me yesterday, and it would have been weird to ask one of the students if I could borrow theirs so I could take a picture of a sentence, so I could look at it when I was back in my office and try and make sense of it, so I could write a smart reply to impress the philosophy grad who wrote it behind that book over there.” He looks down at his hand. “But that plan backfired a little when I was showering this morning.”

Lovino takes a deep breath in through his mouth. He holds it for something that feels like ten seconds, before letting it out his nose. Antonio wonders where he learned relaxation techniques. “It’s a quote. Like the ones I have my students analyze.”

That doesn’t bother Antonio. It still has the same meaning. Because Antonio will still try and find the meaning he wants to see, no matter whose head created it. He starts in on his explanation before he forgets it. He’s a little forgetful sometimes. “I’m not sure what you’ve given me, other than a lot of scribbling to clean up since none of the other classes in here seem to use the blackboards. Oh! And your name. And email; I saw those on Tuesday morning.”

Lovino swallows heavily. Antonio scoots a little closer. Lovino swallows again. “And what you’ve received?”

“Nothing, yet.” Antonio laughs when Lovino pokes him in the side. “ _Can_ I receive something?”

“I’d give your stupid analysis an F if you were my student.”

“Really?!” That doesn’t bode well for what Antonio is trying to do, no matter how much it looks like Lovino is trying to accomplish the same thing. “Okay, how about this: you,” he points at Lovino, “are going to give me your phone number because since I’ve been thinking about it, it’s real. And then I’ll _receive_ a date. Or is that how it goes? Maybe… a tree falls in a forest, but it’s not alone because of all of the animals that live there… there’s no such thing as an empty forest, that’s just silly, so when the tree falls it’ll probably hit something, which is really sad. Although have you ever seen the black-and-white picture of the roots of the tree that fell down by the fountain in the fifties? It’s an amazing shot. It’s hanging in the entryway to the art building.”

Antonio realizes he might have deviated a little bit from the prompt. But he’s never been an essayist. He hopes Lovino understands. He also hopes Lovino is interested in men, but that’s something Antonio is going to find out soon whether he likes the answer or not.

“I’d give that a D for effort.” Lovino pauses. His brain may or may not have imploded somewhere around ‘give me your phone number.’ Normally he would be screaming or flailing or fainting, or mysteriously all three at once. But all he can muster is a stupefied, detached, “and I haven’t been in the art building yet.” He doesn’t even remember which way is up.

It’s a strange answer, but it’s not a ‘no’ or an ‘I’m not interested’ or a ‘go away.’ So Antonio tries the teary-eyed look that got him out of doing his homework in high school.

Lovino frowns. No matter how handsome Antonio is, no matter how attracted Lovino is to him, there are things that won’t change. And one of them is Lovino’s penchant for being an unnecessarily harsh grader. “D minus.”

…wasn’t that lower than a D? “What was the deduction for?”

‘Being an idiot,’ ‘wasting my time,’ and ‘thinking you can manipulate me that easily’ are all on the tip of Lovino’s tongue. So, naturally, what he actually says is “for flirting with the teacher.” He doesn’t quite manage shaking his fist at the ceiling or cursing Fate this time. Instead, he blushes.

Antonio joins him. “Lovino?”

“Yes?”

“Can we stop being hypothetical so I don’t feel creepy asking you out?” Lovino nods. “Are you free tonight? My roommates and I are going dancing with some friends. Do you—”

Lovino thinks if he’s right he’ll never shake his fist at Fate ever again. He definitely won’t shout ‘fuck you I have free will’ at the ceiling anymore. Not if he’s right. “Are you going to the bar on the corner of Fifth and Pine and is one of those friends Feliciano Vargas? And does he look eerily like me but not as attractive, smaller and weaker?”

Antonio has to think about that one. “That’s the bar. …I’m not sure if Feli’s weaker than you. I’ve never seen you lift anything. But you do look a lot like him, now that you mention it. A whole lot like him.”

“He’s my little brother.”

“…so he looks like _you_.” Antonio might not be good with words, but he can still recognize things for what they are.

Fate is beginning to appear very attractive. Lovino imagines him looking like Antonio, but with fewer clothes. “Yes. In that order. But not as good as me.”

“He’s a little cuter—” Antonio feels Lovino shift away. “But you’re more… more… I’d take shots of him jumping into piles of leaves or making flower crowns. But I’d take pictures of you reading or walking or breathing. Or naked.” He leaves his thoughts there, because he’s not sure how else to move them by words alone.

Lovino doesn’t move back to where he’d been. But he doesn’t shift further away either. “Did he try and set you up with anybody tonight?”

“No. But he’s been telling Francis, one of my roommates, a lot about his br— oh. _Oh_. ”

Goddamn **Fate**.

“Hey, Lovino. I think your brother is trying to set you up with my friend.” And Francis is looking forward to the date too, Antonio knows, because Feli is always so nice and cute. It stands to reason that Feli’s brother would be similar. Except Lovino Vargas in the flesh is a lot better than ‘ve, Lovi’s really great! Except for when he yells at me.’ And Antonio doesn’t want to give him up.

But Francis is his friend…

Lovino doesn’t notice the parade of emotions that rolls through Antonio’s face, not even when it gives away free things about Antonio’s thoughts. Lovino’s too busy with his _own_ thoughts, and Feli, and Fate, and this time he curls his hand into a fist and can’t keep the anger out of his voice when he whispers “I have free will, dammit.”

“Lovino?”

He has free will and he uses it by sliding his arm around Antonio’s waist, pulling Antonio closer, and kissing Antonio on the side of his face. Lovino had originally been aiming for Antonio’s cheek, but between surprise and clumsiness he gets a temple and a lock of hair instead. They will do, for a first kiss. “Pick me up at six.” He pulls away to look Antonio in the eyes. “And wear something nicer than that.”

Antonio doesn’t say anything. Not until he manages to frame his hands into a steady rectangle and moves them in front of his face. As though he’s taking a picture. “T-that’s good.” A picture of Lovino’s face. Smug.

 _Click_.

Wary.

 _Click_.

Annoyed.

 _Click_.

And through it all slightly aroused. Antonio will need to remember to keep his camera close when he’s going to be around Lovino. He doesn’t want to miss anything.

“Stop doing that.” Lovino stands quickly, in a huff.

Antonio takes his time. “Stop doing what?” Antonio’s hands are back at his sides, but Lovino still feels like his every move is being documented. Not evaluated. Not observed… not appreciated either. Not quite. It feels like his every action is being _explored_ and Lovino isn’t used to it.

“That!”

But Antonio still doesn’t get it, not even when Lovino throws both of his hands in the air in a gesture of frustration. Instead Antonio laughs, low, in the back of his throat, until it builds and he can’t control it anymore. It’s cheerful.

And vaguely familiar. “Are you _laughing_ at me?” There’s an eraser nearby. Lovino will throw it if he doesn’t like the answer.

“Ye— _oof_.” There’s more than a little chalk in Antonio’s hair now, more like a decade’s worth of erased lectures. And now Lovino is the one laughing, snickering, because Antonio looks old before his time and his clothes are a mess. “Why did you do that?” Antonio isn’t angry, just confused.

Lovino gathers his papers.

Antonio doesn’t know what to make of that, so he picks up the lonely copy of _Basic Photography_ and tucks it under his arm. At Lovino’s look, a look which mirrors Antonio’s expression from only a few moments earlier, Antonio smiles and walks toward the door. “I said it was left behind. Not lost.” He stops when he passes next to Lovino. Maybe he doesn’t know Lovino very well ( _yet_ ), but that only means that now is the perfect time to start.

Before Lovino can protest or try and make Antonio stumble again, Antonio’s arms are pinning Lovino’s to his chest and everything is a little bit warmer. The air smells different. Lovino’s dark blue shirt is probably covered in light white.

And then Antonio is gone again, a safe pocket of air away.

But a scattered bridge of dust particles still connects them.

“See you at six.”

**Author's Note:**

> It took a while to figure out what they'd teach.
> 
> “Reason itself…” – Nicola Abbagnano
> 
>  _I neoplatonici_ – [“it is the story of two boys who grow up together, fall in love, and learn to take temperate delight in each other’s body.”](http://books.google.com/books?id=bd1VD5a6c74C&pg=PA17&dq=i+neoplatonici+the+neoplatonists&hl=en&ei=20QdTeGFJ4q2sAON3qycCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=i%20neoplatonici%20the%20neoplatonists&f=false)
> 
> “I know what…” – Antonio Porchia
> 
> Parkour – [essentially a lot of running and jumping off of tall things](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkour).


End file.
